Govt to hold meeting to speed up airport expansion work

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PTI

July 12, 2016

UPDATED: July 12, 2016 15:55 IST

Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 12 (PTI) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today said a high-level meeting would be convened on July 15 (RPT) 15 to discuss matters connected with the ongoing expansion and development work at the Kozhikode International Airport.

The matter was raised in the Assembly by the opposition stating that the partial closure of the airport for the past one year, due to the work, was causing hardships to lakhs of passengers in north Kerala.

He said the meeting, to be chaired by him, would discuss various issues especially the matters related to the speeding up of the land acquisition processes. Slow progress in the land acquisition process was one of the major road blocks for the completion of the ongoing expansion programme.

Vijayan expressed confidence that with the support of the local people and others concerned, the hurdles in this regard could be resolved.

"Though an order was issued for the acquisition of 137 acres of land necessary for the construction of the terminal, apron and other related infrastructure, no further progress had been made in this regard," Vijayan said while replying to a calling attention on the issue in the Assembly.

Similarly, the runway of the airport also has to be expanded along for the landing of jumbo aircraft, he said, adding, over 240 acres of additional land was needed for that.

The operation of the airport can be made full fledged only after materialising these physical infrastructure, he said.

"We have to speed up the land acquisition procedures in this regard. For that, a high level meeting comprising ministers, MLAs, MPs and other officials will be held on July 15 (RPT) July 15," the Chief Minister added.

The issue was taken up by N Samsudheen of IUML.

The Kozhikode airport was till recently one of the busiest airports in the country. But due to instability of its runway, the authorities had partially closed it, resulting in drastic reduction of services by various airlines and cancellation of wide-bodied aircraft, he said. This had caused hardships not only to the passengers from the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram and Wayanad, but also adversely affecting the farmers and exporters from this region who send their products to the Middle East.PTI LGK JRK RC SMJ TRK

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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